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Serving Static Content From a Directory
=======================================

The goal of this example is to show you how to serve static content from a filesystem.
First, we need to import some objects:

- :py:class:`Site <twisted.web.server.Site>`, an :py:class:`IProtocolFactory <twisted.internet.interfaces.IProtocolFactory>` which glues a listening server port (:py:class:`IListeningPort <twisted.internet.interfaces.IListeningPort>`) to the :py:class:`HTTPChannel <twisted.web.http.HTTPChannel>` implementation::

    from twisted.web.server import Site

- :py:class:`File <twisted.web.static.File>`, an :py:class:`IResource <twisted.web.resource.IResource>` which glues the HTTP protocol implementation to the filesystem::

    from twisted.web.static import File

- The :py:mod:`reactor <twisted.internet.reactor>`, which drives the whole process, actually accepting TCP connections and moving bytes into and out of them::

    from twisted.internet import reactor

- And the :py:mod:`endpoints <twisted.internet.endpoints>` module, which gives us tools for, amongst other things, creating listening sockets::

    from twisted.internet import endpoints

Next, we create an instance of the File resource pointed at the directory to serve::

    resource = File("/tmp")

Then we create an instance of the Site factory with that resource::

    factory = Site(resource)

Now we glue that factory to a TCP port::

    endpoint = endpoints.TCP4ServerEndpoint(reactor, 8888)
    endpoint.listen(factory)

Finally, we start the reactor so it can make the program work::

    reactor.run()

And that's it. Here's the complete program::

    from twisted.web.server import Site
    from twisted.web.static import File
    from twisted.internet import reactor, endpoints

    resource = File('/tmp')
    factory = Site(resource)
    endpoint = endpoints.TCP4ServerEndpoint(reactor, 8888)
    endpoint.listen(factory)
    reactor.run()


Bonus example!
For those times when you don't actually want to write a new program, the above implemented functionality is one of the things the command line ``twistd`` tool can do.
In this case, the command

.. code-block:: sh

    twistd -n web --path /tmp

will accomplish the same thing as the above server.
See :doc:`helper programs <../../../core/howto/basics>` in the Twisted Core documentation for more information on using ``twistd``.